Naruto, The game
by Shall be in water writ
Summary: Time travel and yet not. Alternate Dimension... not really. A game? Yes! But unlike any you have played. Naruto, are you prepared to take a journey of a thousand lifetimes? Power, wealth, knowledge and love will all be within your grasp, but you must forge your own purpose. There are no easy roads and failure is only a temporary setback. Click start, if you dare.
1. Chapter 1

Naruto – The game

Prologue

He was pretty sure he was going to die; the kunai buried hilt deep in between his 5th and 6th ribs was a very good indication of an imminent end. Oh, and also the fact that the heart is in between those two ribs probably did not help any his situation. His name is Uzumaki Naruto and he is a proud genin of Konohagakure; his dream, to become the Hokage, leader of the mighty village hidden in the leaves. Not anymore it seems, two dark shutters were slowly but inevitably dimming his vision of the bright and blurry world. He fought against it, but there was no denying the ache and weariness that overtook his senses. Naruto passed away, silently mourning the miserable end that was nowhere near his ideal way to go; he wanted to become the Hokage and fight awesome S-ranked ninjas and win. He would stand tall amidst the overwhelming devastation wrought by the exchange of S-ranked ninjutsus and protect his village, the people who he counted as family! He jumped up and opened his eyes, burning with the fervor of the desperate. He couldn't die yet! Death was a concept that he knew of, but had never considered for himself. That's right!

"I won't go down like this! Believe it!" Naruto exclaimed, before freezing. Hadn't he just died? He quickly looked down at his chest. His orange jumpsuit was without a blemish, albeit a little scruffy around the edges, but where was the debilitating wound? He quickly unzipped his jumpsuit and lifted his white tunic. Unmarred flesh greeted his wide eyes and his expression morphed into one of stupefaction. "Yes!" He exclaimed in glee. "No stab wound from a crappy kunai can bring me, Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage and best ninja in the world down!" He grinned and looked up at his surrounding, coming off the adrenalin high he received from escaping death. It was pitch black all around him, an unperceivable darkness that no light could illuminate, and the only reason he had been able to see himself was because of the white glare beaming from atop his head. He carefully lifted a hand to cover his eyes from the intense beam of spotlight that lit a perfect circle around his feet and raised his head slowly. Above his head, five words blazed ahead in orange. Above it was white light, and trying to gaze at the source of that light was futile, for there was nothing around, above or beside the light, other than inky blackness.

Game Over!

Continue?

Yes.

No.

The bottom two words were pulsing softly, emitting a soft orange aura in a rhythmic pattern. Naruto blanched. What was going on? Questions ceaselessly bombarded his head and his automatic impulse to shout and yell surged to the forefront. Before he even knew what he was doing, he had opened his mouth to yell out the first syllables of the words "what the hell", but he quickly slapped a hand over his mouth to prevent the sound from escaping. Slowly, he relaxed and contrary to his natural instincts, began thinking of a reasonable explanation for this mysterious block of text. Of course, he understood the initial and obvious explanation; he had played games before and the words 'game over' were quite self-explanatory. But this made no sense, what had he been doing before? Ah. Right. Dying. Naruto wracked his head and tried to make sense of what was going on, and somewhere in the back of his head was a subconscious murmur that he was also acting strangely, after all, since when did he have the patience to actually think for this long? First things first, he needed to find out where he was and how he got into this and how to get out. His personality change could be dealt with later. Naruto began to slowly go back over his last few memories of what happened.

Naruto grinned mischievously at Iruka-sensei, who was looking at him in an exasperated yet fond expression. "Naruto, I can't give you my headband. It's something that you can only get when you become a genin." Naruto pouted, but shrugged off the rejection and pumped his left hand, since his right was holding onto a pair of chopsticks that was currently in a delicious bowl of miso ramen, and shouted out his determination. "Fine! I'll become a genin in no time. I'm Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage! Believe it!"

He beamed as Iruka-sensei ruffled his hair and gestured to his noodles. "Eat up Naruto, save that determination for tomorrow's exam."

"Just you wait, I'll pass it for sure tomorrow!" Naruto turned back to his ramen and consumed it with the gusto of a starving man, despite it being his 4th bowl.

Naruto's winced as he remembered his failure to pass the exam. The bunshin had prevented him from graduating… actually… why had he never bothered to improve that jutsu? Shaking his head quickly to clear his thoughts, he remembered Mizuki-teme, who had roped him into stealing the forbidden scroll of sealing and… and… the revelation that he had the nine tails sealed within him. Iruka-sensei had tried to help him, but had been injured in the process. Of course, he had tried to beat up Mizuki following that, only to find out that his kage bunshins were far too weak and his last memories were of being stabbed by the bastard of a chunin, which had hurt a lot, and the fatigue that had followed, which probably meant that he was dead.

Maybe this was all a joke and he had been captured by… no that was a stupid idea. Who would go after him? Sure, he knew the Hokage, but there was no reason to capture him. Plus, how was it possible to be kidnapped in the heart of Konoha, strongest of all the ninja nations? Nah. Either this was all a prank, which he wasn't sure who would nurse a grudge to do this, on second thought, that was actually possible since he had pissed off a lot of the shinobi and civilians in Konoha, or this was real. Which was ridiculous, how stupid did the pranksters think he was? Growling in anger, he sat down on the floor, which was made of a soft but solid surface, and resolved to refuse to give in. If there was one thing that he knew, it was that pranksters didn't have much in patience and if the target refused to participate, then they would give up. At least, that was the case for him when he pranked his targets. Yawning, he curled up into a ball and fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1. Awaken adventurer!

Naruto woke lazily, his arms extending out in a big yawn and he rubbed his eyes slowly. The white glare of the sun blazed around him and he grimaced. It was probably noon or something like that, now what was it that he was supposed to do today again? Speaking of which today was… it came back to him without warning, a flood of memories and emotion that jolted him out of the relaxed and lethargic state he was in. Gazing up and around, he saw the exact same image prior to his nap. The five words still floated in the air above him, far beyond his reach, but there was no sign of any change. The pranksters were quite persistent and this was quickly annoying Naruto. He felt anger rise in him, coiled and hot, but there was no urge to immediately take action, rather he simply wanted to punch someone. Preferably the person responsible, but he knew that was most likely impossible.

"Alright! I get it, can you please stop messing around, whoever is pulling this prank?" He followed this statement with a number of expletives that he murmured under his breath. To his shock, an androgynous voice echoed out from around him.

"Invalid command received. Please specify between 'yes' and 'no'." The voice was tinny and robotic, but there was a happy undertone. Obviously fake. Rolling his eyes at the horrible attempt to convince him that he was in a game, he gestured rudely above and called out: "Why don't you stop pretending and show yourself? No need to be such an ass."

"No command received. Are you sure of your choice?" The voice stated in the same happy undertone. Naruto blinked in confusion. "What? What option?" Sure of what?"

"No command confirmed. Proceeding to menu."

Naruto looked on in absolute shock as the darkness around him swirled suddenly and his vision was temporarily whited out. After blinking several times, Naruto took in his new surroundings. He was standing on top of a round disk of earth that was floating in thin air. All around him was blue sky and below him were the fluffy outlines of countless clouds that completely obscured him from seeing any further down. To his left, and directly level with his eyes, was the sun. In front of him were several more floating texts.

Menu

Start

Achievements

Options

Help

Naruto stared at the supposes menu in front of him and gulped. This was incredible, either he was in the genjutsu of all genjutsus or he was in a game. There was no other explanation possible. Frowning, he tried to remember what he had learned concerning breaking out of genjutsus. The most common method of breaking out by having a teammate inject their chakra to disrupt the genjutsu was out. Stopping the flow of his internal chakra and causing himself pain were the only options that worked. Both were soon proved to be impossible. To his absolute shock, he had no chakra at all. He could not find even a thread of chakra within his body, the familiar exuberant energy that filled him was absent and incredibly, he had not even realized. Biting his lips, stepping on his hands and punching himself also failed; he could certainly do the actions, but he could not pierce, bruise or harm his skin. There was only one real conclusion he could draw, yet it made no sense whatsoever.

Naruto felt a twinge of anger and depression upon realizing that at the moment of his death, he had not even achieved genin. What was the point of his dream and aspirations if he couldn't even get past the first hurdle. And to die at the hands of such an insignificant chunin. Realizing that he was getting more and more angry, Naruto quickly decided to think of something else. After all, he was still alive, albeit in an entirely perplexing situation. So what to do now?

"Ahem," he cleared his throat. "How am I supposed to choose the help option if I can't even reach it?" He scratched his head awkwardly and waited for the voice to respond.

"Error command recieved, please specify between 'Help' and 'Option'." The voice cheerfully blazed out from around him.

Naruto felt annoyance rise at the sound of the stupid voice. "I said help, not option! Are you deaf or something?" He fumed silently, waiting for a response.

"Error command recieved, please specify between 'Help' and 'Option'." The voice cheerfully blazed out. Again.

Feeling his eyebrows twitch, Naruto glared at the text floating far away in front of him. "I said help dammit!"

"Help command selected. Would you like a verbal or nonverbal tutorial?" The voice that was neither female nor male boomed from all around him.

"Hah. As if I would choose verbal! Non-verbal tutorial. Believe it!" Naruto grinned feeling his initial anger fading quickly. No longer would he have to listen to that annoying and stupid voice.

"Error command recieved, please specify between 'Verbal' and 'Non-verbal'." The voice cheerfully blazed out. For the third time.

Naruto felt his anger surge back into him with a vengeance. "Non-verbal, you *beep* *beep*." He stopped in shock as he realized that his voice had somehow been muted on the swear words and replaced by beeps. "What in the *beep*?"

"*beep*. Dammit. Stupid. *beep*. *beep*." Naruto scratched his head in confusion. "Huh. Why would *beep* not be allowed when dammit is allowed?"

"Non-verbal command received. Initiating tutorial." This time there was no voice and Naruto was about to cheer as the words flashed before him at eye level. Before he could let loose a cheer, the surroundings whirled in a familiar kaleidoscope of colors and he was roughly deposited in a training ground surrounded by trees. To his left was a stream, but Naruto found himself incapable of moving in any direction. He could make gestures and walk in place, but he could not budge from his location.

"Welcome to ******: The Game. This tutorial will teach you the basics of the world. It is up to you, the adventurer to find out the rules and hidden secrets of the world."

Naruto grinned as he realized that the words adjusted their speed based on how fast he read. "This is so much better than that stupid voice!" He crowed in glee.

"The first thing you need to know is that the world of ******: The Game is that there is an exception to every rule. The world that this game creates is infinitely permutable. There are an unlimited number of worlds that can arise and never shall two worlds be the same. The characters within the world will always be different, despite retaining their names. There is however, a reason to why their names remain fixed. It is up to you to find out why."

Naruto nodded. "I have no clue what permutable means, but okay."

"Every time you die, the world will end and you will always be returned to the start menu. Every time you start the game, you will begin at the age of 9. The goal of the game is to answer a question. You must find both the question and the answer. Good luck adventurer, the world of ******: The Game is yours to enjoy." Naruto deadpanned at that. "Wow. That's really helpful. Stupid game," Naruto felt his ire rise as he pondered which sadistic asshole would design a game like this. He blinked as the training ground faded away in a whirl of colors, giving him a slight migraine which disappeared as his surroundings returned. The familiar blue sky opened above him and the white fluffy clouds extended infinitely far beneath his tiny platform. The familiar text bubbles popped out in front of him, again out of reach.

Naruto grimaced as a horrible realization dawned upon him. "Oh no. Not the voice again!"

"Invalid command received. Please specify a choice among the menu list." The voice cheerfully blazed out.

Glaring at nothing in particular, Naruto shouted out "Options!"

"Option command received. Opening option menu." The world whirled around him and the text changed, but the surroundings remained the same.

Option Menu

Difficulty: Default

Command prompt: Verbal (neutral)

Menu design: Swirly

Era: *Locked*

Specializations: *Locked*

Naruto decided to go with difficulty level. After all, even he knew that by choosing easy mode, most games were simple enough to beat. "I select difficulty!" He cried out.

He saw the difficulty menu pop up and saw that there were four options: Easy, Default, Hard and Insane (*Warning: difficulty level can only be changed once). "Haha, who would be stupid enough to choose Insane?" Naruto laughed at the stupidity of the game designer. "I mean come on." He was still laughing when the voice spoke.

"Difficulty: Insane locked in. Proceeding to option menu." The voice spoke in the same cheerfully robotic voice. Naruto yelled in rage. "No! I never said to make the difficulty insane you *beep*," he paused to gather breath before exploding into another series of expletives, "*beep**beep**beep**beep*."

"Error command received. Difficulty is now locked on insane. Please choose among the following options:" Naruto glared at the text and spotted the second option in the list.

"Open Command prompt, you *beep*," he yelled. The voice, unperturbed by his increasingly vulgar insults, replied in the same happy tone, "Command prompt selected. Please choose among the following options:

Verbal (female)

Verbal (male)

Verbal (neutral)

Non-verbal (text)

Non-verbal (touch)."

Naruto's jaw dropped. "There are other voices?" He shuddered at the thought of more voices booming around him repeatedly saying 'Error command received', no. That would not do at all! "Non verbal… uh… touch?" He tentatively suggested. The world blurred around him and in front of him a small scroll popped out and unravelled itself. "Cool!" Naruto could not help but be amazed at the sight of impeccable and flawless words appearing on the scroll. The option menu was now listed on the scroll with an added 'return to main menu'.

Grinning to himself, he quickly pressed that with his fingers and watched in stupefaction as new words overwrote the previous ones. The familiar menu options appeared, now in miniature on the scroll.

"Screw achievements, I've had it with this stupid menu." And so saying, Naruto pressed start. The world around him swirled into inky blackness.


End file.
